Public access points, such as wireless access points, are common today in a large number of locations such as restaurants, cafes, government facilities, airplanes and taxicabs. Typically all users sharing an access point are given roughly equivalent access to the shared network and compete for upstream bandwidth equally. This can create situations where people spend long periods of time monopolizing access to the network, and monopolizing physical access in the vicinity of the access point, while new users are inconvenienced. This can be particularly problematic for owners of private facilities such as cafes where users can occupy physical space that would otherwise be available for paying customers. What is needed is an improved method for controlling access by users sharing a common access point.